Around 50% of Users Cannot Identify a Phishing Message

A survey organized by O+K research from the security firm, Kaspersky has disclosed that about 50% of users cannot identify a forged email message or website.

The process of imitating a genuine email, site or organization to con mail users into opening fake files or letting into personal information is called phishing.

The survey has displayed that 86% of netizens access their emails often, 73% follows social networking sites and 54% indulge their Smartphone towards accessing the internet.

47% of netizens got emails with wary link or attachment, while 29% received an email containing the name of a bank or a renowned organization seeking intricate information.

Furthermore, 26% of users confessed that their computers had been polluted due to the opening of an attachment as thought to be a letter, and 13% of respondents had written personal or financial data at doubtful pages.

In terms of mobile users, 24% of tablet users and 18% of Smartphone owners received correspondence with malevolent links and attachment. 14% and 11%, respectively obtained letters purporting to be sent from a bank or social network.

Also interestingly, according to the survey passwords are considered as the first security measures for protecting users account e.g. Email. Sometimes users can suffer due to negligence: 34% of those surveyed, e.g., use obvious or simple password. Some of them can be found of social networks, e.g. date of birth (used by around 17%) or a pet's name (9%).

Others probably use 12345 and other same differences (8%) or 'Password' (5%), which are fairly simple to crack. Weak passwords are one of the most usual gaps when it comes to security user data, disclosed by Kaspersky study.

Therefore, how passwords are stored can serve an important role in storing personal information secure. Around 71% of those surveyed learn their password. This is the most common method, but it is difficult to remember a variety of passwords for different resources, and using the same password for several online services is downright dangerous. All it takes is for a cybercriminal to crack or steal the password to a single service in order to gain access to all of a user's information stored in the cloud, Kaspersky concludes.